The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen Read Free Book Online

full-blood professionals, albeit of the kind who saw no reason to boast of their peculiar areas of expertise: begging, pickpocketing, burglary, colliding with old ladies so they dropped their handbags, from fast-moving bikes drive-by grabs of anything hanging from a shoulder or hand that seemed like it might be worth something. They were proficient to their fingertips, and Marco in particular demonstrated talent in every reprehensible domain. He could beg, eyes wide and imploring, with a smile that awoke compassion. He could wriggle through the smallest of windows in private homes without a sound, and out on the street among the busy throngs he was truly in his element. Nimble and adroit, he would relieve his victim of watch or wallet. Never a wrong movement or sound, often gesticulating excitedly to distract attention, always eliciting sympathy.
    There was only one thing about Marco that was neither to his own nor the clan’s benefit.
    He hated his existence, and all that he did, to the depths of his being.
    And so he lay in his bed listening to the other kids’ breathing, trying to imagine the life he did not have. The life that other children had, the ones he saw outside. Children with mothers and fathers who went to work; children who went to school and perhaps received a hug or a small gift every now and then. Children who were given nice food every single day and who had friends and family who came to see them. Children who didn’t always look afraid.
    When he lay with these thoughts in his mind, Marco would curse Zola. Back in Italy they had at least formed a sort of community: play in the afternoons, songs in the evenings; summer nights around the fire, boastful stories of the day’s exploits. The women played up to the men,and the men puffed themselves up, on occasion clashing and exchanging blows, much to everyone’s amusement. That was when they still were Gypsies.
    How Zola had managed to declare himself their indisputable guiding light was something Marco had difficulty grasping. Why did the other adults put up with it? The only things he did were to terrorize them, dominate their lives, and relieve them of everything they had struggled to scrape together. And when such thoughts troubled Marco’s mind he felt shame on behalf of the grown-ups, and especially his father.
    This evening he raised himself onto his elbows in bed, fully aware he had ventured onto thin ice. Zola had not really done him harm back there in the living room, but his eyes had warned of miseries to come. Of that he was certain.
    He knew he must speak to his father about Samuel. He needed to speak to someone, at least. The question was whether it would help. For some time his father had seemed so distant. As though something had happened that had really affected him.
    The first time Marco had noticed it was almost two years before, when his father had sat one morning with his brow furrowed in a frown, passively staring at the food put before him. Marco had thought he must be ill, but the following day he was more energetic than he had been for months. Some said he had begun to chew khat like a number of others, but regardless of what he was up to, the furrows in his brow had come to stay. For some time Marco kept his concerns to himself, but eventually he confided in Miryam and asked if she knew anything.
    “You’re dreaming, Marco. Your father’s exactly the same as he’s always been,” she said, and tried to smile.
    They spoke no more of it, and Marco endeavored to put it from his mind.
    But then, six months ago, he had noticed once more the look on his father’s face, though now a slightly different variant. There had been quite a bit of turbulence throughout the night, but after ten the kids were not allowed to leave their rooms, for which reason it couldn’t have been caused by any of them.
    Marco had been woken in the middle of a dream by the sound oftumult in the hallway. Judging by the nature of the groans he heard, hard